Surgical instruments which ensure a relative movement between branches/instrument parts, are applied in almost all medical fields. Efficient just as thorough purification/disinfection/sterilization of used instruments becomes increasingly important. The reason for this is, on the one hand, to meet an increasing quality standard with respect to disinfection, on the other hand, the time interval available for disinfection is more and more reduced. Pivoting of two or more branches/instrument parts (forming the jaw member of the instrument) usually is enabled in a coupling area. The latter is configured so as to realize robust and uniform guiding of the branches relative to each other. Due to the mutual support of the branches/instrument parts such guiding usually involves surfaces which are hardly accessible to a disinfectant, thereby, on the one hand, thorough disinfection being impeded and, on the other hand, a lot of time being required for disinfection.
Several state-of-the-art documents are based on the object of better accessibility of surfaces to be disinfected of a coupling area and/or mounting area. For example, DE 10101425 A1 discloses a surgical instrument comprising two branches capable of being pivoted relative to each other. They are accessible for purification and sterilization of contact surfaces to a restricted extent only. For improving said accessibility in that patent application publication the branches are structurally modified so that outside their normal operating area which relates to usual angular spans of pivoting they are movable relative to each other so that full-surface contacts are reversed in portions. In this way, improved purification is made possible. The original problem, i.e. that in the coupling area of the branches only contact surfaces which are very difficult to disinfect are provided, is not completely eliminated, however.
A generic document is also constituted by DE 20 2009 104 310 U1. It discloses a sliding shaft instrument comprising a main part and a further part which is configured so that an as complete disinfection as possible can be carried out between the two parts without dismounting the two parts. In that document it is not possible, either, to completely avoid full-surface or at least line contacts. Furthermore, it has to be noted that that document includes a pivoting axis which is directed orthogonally to one according to the invention and is located outside a coupling area, which causes the complexity of disinfection to be reduced.
In this respect, for example the disinfection of a through end/box end extremely complex in prior art is mentioned, as it is also known from DE 202011000800 U1. Such disinfection may be carried out by means of fluid or by means of rays and can be performed manually as well as by machine.